Study: Breastfeeding may help prevent cancer if family history

August 11, 2009 9:49:34 AM PDT

August 11, 2009 (CHICAGO) --

Women who have a family history of breast cancer may want to breast feed their babies.Researchers discovered that women with a family history of breast cancer were 59-percent less likely to develop the disease if they breast fed their children. It did not seem to matter if the breast-feeding lasted 3 months or 3 years.

According to the report in the "Archives Of Internal Medicine" the protective effect was the same.

Researchers suspect breast feeding prevents breast inflammation following childbirth a condition that is thought to increase the risk of cancer.

Researchers also found breast-feeding did not significantly affect the risk of women who had no family history of breast cancer.